At Siding & Windows Wizards LLC we like to take care about people's houses and like to share ideas about vinyl siding, replacement windows, fiber cement siding, roofing, or anything else that can make people's life easier.

If you look at your window frames and you wanna cry, then you know you are gonna have to pick that old 'n rusty paint brush and get yourself dirty in paint, swearing that this is the last time you are doing it. So if you wanna give up painting job, I can tell you there is a solution to your headaches. Just cap it with aluminum coil and be done with it for at least 15 years to come. For that high tech job we need some heavy equipment and huge amount of desire. So what we need

An 8' or 10' break, you can borrow it or rent it at Home Depot

Roll of aluminum coil

Trim nail puncher

A 1/4 pound of trim nails

Aluminum shears

1 tube of quad caulking

Caulking gun

If you can find all that staff then we are ready to go. First measure the window frame, do not make it too tight, the capping has to be a little bit wider by 1/16. Take the measurements and bend aluminum coil on a brake.

Like always we start working from the bottom piece, then do the sides and then the top of the window.

Thats the window we are gonna start working

Step 1 Mark the sides of the bottom of the window. Use aluminum shears to cut the coil. When you cut the pre marked window capping, make small leaps.

The reason we made those little leaps is to eliminate any possible water leaks.

Step 2: Put some trim nails with a nail puncher, don't put too many if the capping sits tight.

Step 3: Do the side of the window. At the bottom cut the side a little be on the angle so it sits tight on the bottom piece.

Step 4: Caulk the joints of the window frame and capping. We are using White Caulk Quad, having tested other caulking brands, we can definitely say Quad is the best. Quad caulking is a little more expensive than other brands, but it is worth every penny. It doesn't crack, change the color, bonds well, when it dries it becomes like a rubber, washable and paintable.

And here we go we've done it, the window capping looks great, the window itself still looks ugly. I would highly recommend to replace windows that cannot be opened or look like windows, that are not gonna survive strong blow of the wind. Well anyway we dressed it up a bit. People said they would paint the window themselves, I hope they did.

Installation of vinyl siding is not a rocket science. So if you got hit with a white hot beam of desire to do it and you believe you can do it, then no doubt, roll up your sleeves and lets start hitting nails. Let us do something interesting of vinyl siding installation. I think we should go ahead and do that noble job of j channeling a window. What do we need for that? Very simple hand tools: a vinyl siding shears, a hammer, and 1'' 1/2 or 2'' roofing nails, use 2'' if you have fanfold insulation on. You can use 1'' 1/2 nails if you have tyvek on and plywood walls.

We have tried different ways how to do it and by trial and error we finally got to the best one. The j channeled window looks nice and watertight, stays that way for many years.

Step #1Check the frame of the window and clean anything that is not gonna allow for a j channel to lay flat to the side of the window.

Step #2Start j channeling the window from the bottom, make cuts on both ends of the j channel.

Step #3Place the side j channel and mark it, then mark the bottom j channel. Do not forget to extend the side j channel above the top of the window frame, make it at least 1 inch above the top of the window.

Step 4 Cut the side J channel by the marks

Step 5Cut the bottom j channel and lock the side j into the bottom.

That's it, we are all set, do the same way on all corners of the window. Remember the top has to be done the last. First goes in the bottom, then 2 side j channels and then the top.

We are in last weeks of winter , hopefully. Everybody is tired of all these endless snowy days.Couple more weeks and spring is gonna be here with another extreme weather conditions like hail storms. So if you still have aluminum siding on your house, it can be easily damaged by hail storm. Well that's the bad news, now the good news if you come out of your house and pick up something like on the picture below

Then you can be sure that your house and the houses in your area are entitled to hailstorm insurance claim damage.Folks, it is time to get some payback from your home insurance. So what you should do. First you can inspect your aluminum siding yourself. If you see small dents on your siding, almost hardly noticeable, like on the pictures below, you can smile. But don' t make a party with everyone invited and getting wild, just not yet. You should call us so we could stop by and take some pictures and start writing an insurance claim. As soon as your insurance company approves the claim and issues a check, we can start working on replacing aluminum siding with vinyl siding. Now you can through a party and get wild. The Insurance company is not gonna pay though for fiber cement installation, they believe vinyl siding is the closest match for aluminum siding. Sometimes the insurance company does not allow to change the color of the siding, but that's negotiable. Pictures and short video below were taken in South Jersey, we did about 50 houses that were damaged by hail and paid by home insurance companies. You can check out this website http://www.hailmaps.com/ for all the past hail storms and see if your house is eligible for free vinyl siding